Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Shallow secrets for carp & F1s – Jon Whincup
You need to make your rig specs differ slightly when both carp and F1s are your target species, says Jon Whincup who puts theory into practice
CARP and F1s may look similar but they are very different creatures. The former are aggressive feeders, charging through swims to intercept bait as they pack on the pounds during summer. F1s, however, are more reserved. They will investigate a potential meal with caution before either getting their heads down or sensing the danger and fleeing. With this in mind the tactics needed to catch each species should be different and Jon Whincup’s styles for the duo certainly contrast. The Bait-Tech and Frenzee-backed star often uses his up-in-the-water attack at this time of year but the way he sets up and his overall performance will differ depending on whether carp or F1s are the primary target. “On hot days the vast majority of fish in commercials will be sitting just beneath the surface. If you get things right you will soon get them feeding,” asserted Jon. “Sadly there isn’t a shallow rig that does everything. You need to make several subtle changes depending on what you expect to be putting in the net.”
Noise factor
If you ship out, drop in your shallow rig and leave it in place for an extended period you are unlikely to get a bite. A pellet suspended high in the water looks unnatural and the fish will be much more inclined to swoop at a bait that is falling through the water column. To make your hookbait appear natural it is vital that you constantly lift the rig and lay it back in the water. “You should take your rig out and put it back in every 10 seconds at the very least. When you are shallow fishing you don’t want to set the depth to any more than 3ft and it only takes a short amount of time for a hookbait to fall through that depth. “Both species associate noise with food going in so I ‘slap’ the float back in to make some commotion. I do this a couple of times within a split second for F1s and once for carp. “This is because carp tend to wise up to persistent slapping of the rig while doing it a little more seems to draw in bigger F1s.” It is also important to keep the feed going in while keeping the rig active and Jon feeds 15 pellets a split second before his rig goes back in. This guarantees that his hookbait falls at the same pace as the loosefeed. If F1s are on the menu fire in 4mm pellets, increasing that to 6mm for carp. The only time 8mm come into the equation is as a hookbait for carp. “F1s are usually smaller than carp so it makes sense to give them a slightly smaller feed.”
Depth decisions
Jon rarely goes below 3ft deep when fishing shallow as he believes the fish will almost always be very close to the surface. Although he has no ‘magic’ depth for either species, he has noticed that, at times, both species will sit away from each other, even if that is only by a small distance. “I find that 18in to 2ft is a good starting point but it is often a case of changing it by a few inches either way to keep in touch with the fish.
“Constantly lift the rig and lay it back in the water”